Courses master Cultural Geography

Always wanted to understand how characteristics of places relate to the quality of life and wellbeing of people? The Msc programme Cultural Geography aims to train students to become professionally competent in the field of geography and liveability so that they can make a useful contribution to improving place-related liveability, quality of life and wellbeing in society. All compulsory courses are taught in Leeuwarden. You can also follow the track of Cultural Geography: Tourism Geography and Planning. All courses of the track are taught in Leeuwarden.

What will you learn?

The programme of the master Cultural Geography consists of the following courses in 2017/2018. Click on the course title to go to the full course description, information about lecturers, literature and time period.

This course considers some of the key overarching concepts and ideas in cultural geography, especially those pertinent to regional development. We specifically consider the issues of ‘place and identity’, ‘dwelling and mobility’, ‘roots and routes’, ‘change and authenticity’, ‘culture and nature’, ‘difference and othering’, as well as the concepts of landscape, resilience, resistance, endogenous regional development and the cultural economy.

The fieldwork aims at learning and practicing different methods that can be used to do empirical research into cultural geographical key concepts such as place attachment, sense of place, (regional) identities, representations, iconic landscapes, and liveability in the field. This course partly takes place abroad.

The objective of this course is (1) to provide advanced training in qualitative data collection methods; and (2) to introduce a variety of data analysis approaches for textual and visual qualitative data.

Natural, heritage and landscape values of the rural and urban environment are studied to understand the different appreciations and valuations of places and areas in society. During lectures, attention will be paid to the birth and evolution of the idea of the preservation of the past and its paradigmatic transformation into heritage, with a specific focus on cultural, natural and geoheritage. The main contemporary issues and controversies surrounding heritage and identifications in pluralistic societies will also be addressed, including practical examples during (guest) lectures

Cities are always changing. These changes result in new needs, fricitons, opportunities and problems. These are topics which are of interest to policy makers in city neighbourhoods. Revitalizing neighbourhoods explores these topics and reflects on the Dutch city renewal policies.

Social Impact Assessment (SIA) is the process of managing the social issues of projects and policies. This course enables students to understand the significance, possibilities and pitfalls relating to the use of SIA with interventions that have spatial consequences.

The Master Thesis is carried out individually. The research is performed under the supervision of a teacher and has to connect to the current research projects of the department of Cultural Geography. The topic of the Master Thesis needs to be of a clear cultural geographical nature.